


The Apiary

by VigilantShadow



Category: The Secret World
Genre: (Abusive Parents Haven't Appeared Yet But They Might Someday), Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Bonding, Gen, I couldn't smut my way out of a paper bag, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Tension, Temporary Character Death, abusive parenting, but owen gets frisky, so im mentioning it, unrelated oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilantShadow/pseuds/VigilantShadow
Summary: A repost of some short stories I did on tumblr, just to get them all in one place. These are oneshots/drabbles about my PCs, based off prompts by tumblruser nikkideedeedee + the oc kiss week





	1. TTYL | Adelaide Nott

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Your agent loses their phone. Featuring Adelaide Nott, 2000 year old Templar/magical private detective.

Private Detective Adelaide Nott was notorious for losing phones. It seemed that every other week, a brand new smart phone was slipping out of her grasp and into the nearest accessible body of water, exposed lava stream, or nest of giant locusts. It pained her to do so, but Addy accepted the damage that this habit did to her reputation as a cool, composed private eye. After all, “losing” her phone in the middle of a mission was the most convenient way of escaping the endless notifications from the two dozen group texts her teammates _insisted_ on adding her to.


	2. Easy Money | Owen Mitchell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt challenge: An agent repeats a mission for the first time.  
> In which the concept of getting paid for something he'd do for free mystifies Owen Mitchell. Ft. Improvisedimages OC Brigitte.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing my report,” Brigitte responded, not looking up from her phone as she typed a mile a minute.

“But we…didn’t do anything. We just killed a bunch of zombies.”

“Yep.”

“We _always_ kill zombies.”

Brigitte sighed, as if Owen was an exhausting child whom she humored out of obligation. She did that a lot. Owen liked to think it was because she secretly cared about him.

“Yeah, but we killed them _here_. We can say that the cowboy near the portal made us. Turn in a report saying we’re helping defend Agartha from undead and voila. Free money.”

“We would’ve killed them anyway, though.”

“So? Free money.”

“That’s unethical,” Owen insisted. Brigitte looked up, her eyes narrowing. She pointed at the Illuminati emblem on the collar of her jacket, “Okay. Alright. You’ve got me there.”

“Of course I do. Now, write yours fast. I want to take some bullets to Deputy Andy.”

“For more money?”

Brigitte smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Owen's profile can be found [here](http://wiki.tsw-rp.com/index.php?title=Owen_%27Grantaire%27_Mitchell) .


	3. Question | Hallie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a sentient, magic android contemplated mortality.  
> Prompt: Your agent dies for the first time.

Hallie had watched humans die. She remembered, in that dim way she remembered things from before honey flowed through her, watching from the window as Doctor West from the lab was struck from a car. She could not think then, not in the way that humans meant when they talked about thinking, but if she could she would have thought that seems unpleasant. The other Doctors had grieved for him, had said he was in a better place.  
Her first few hours of thought she had used the gift for only one thing.  
If I am alive now, can I die? If I die, will I go to that better place?  
She had since learnt that thinking about spiritual things only led to recursive loops and Error: File Not Founds and warnings about subjectivity. So she had put these fruitless questions out of her mind, distracted by more answerable and immediate questions like what is a double entendre? and why do humans laugh when I don’t understand them?  
She had almost forgot about the question, as much as she could forget anything without wiping memory drives. Then, she got her answer.  
Her skin was a bit more durable than that of a human, but it still tore under the pressure of hundreds of stone spikes. As the trap lowered onto her head, she felt two things she never had before: fear for her life, and a sense of satisfaction that she might finally answer her question.  
She woke to the sound of buzzing bees and whirring processors, the machinery between her skin feeling as new as when she had first awoken. She sat up in the anima well, feeling hot as if she had tried to run some complicated algorithms.  
No to both questions, then. She thought. Disappointing. She had wondered what that better place might look like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hallie's profile can be found [here](http://wiki.tsw-rp.com/index.php?title=Hallie_%22ElectricAnima%22_Anima) , but the TL;DR is that she is a robot who got magic from Gaia, giving her some measure of sentience.


	4. High Society | Lyle Stevens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy with shaking hands and capital D Dreams must decide whether to let himself trust another person.  
> Prompt: Dancing

Attention felt a bit like The Dreaming to Lyle: sliding, slimy, sending whispers of anxiety through him. But unlike The Dreamers, the old-guard Templar milling about the dance hall promised no power, only scorn.

“Don’t worry, Lyle,” Evelyn told him, sitting beside him on the couch where he had been skulking for most of the party. He wondered how she could seem so graceful in everything, even sitting down. He wondered why she was here, and not dancing. She loved to dance, and any person here would be willing to be her partner. His sister charmed everyone – except their mother, who was proud of being un-charmable.

“Worry about what?”

“No one’s watching you,” she said, smiling in a way that he couldn’t write off as fake. He must have seemed confused, because she suddenly looked embarrassed, “oh, was that not it? I’m so sorry! It’s just…when we were little you said you hated people watching you, so I thought that that must be why you seemed so nervous! Oh Gaia, I really need to stop jumping to conclusions.”

He forced himself to smile, wondering what other things she remembered about him which he could not recall confiding to her. He wondered when he might have said that, also. The Dreamers, and his parents, had long ago taught him not to tell people about his failings.

“No, no Eve. You aren’t wrong.” He knew that he should deflect her concern elsewhere, that the lack of any red threads between them meant that indulging her would only mean she could hurt him later. _She’s so worried, though,_ he thought, _I can do this just once._

“Well then, you don’t have to worry. No one’s watching you. And if they are, I’ll just sneak off and make a distraction so they stop.”

“That’s kind of you,” he said, and somehow managed to not sound completely surprised.

“You’re my brother,” she said, leaning against her shoulder. He looked at her, closely this time instead of the cursory glances he usually limited himself to – looking at people and seeing that no lines of red trailed off them and toward him was difficult. She seemed so at ease, her shoulders relaxed in a way he envied, and her green eyes glowing with something that might be affection, “even if you never talk to me anymore.”

“If you want to talk to one of your siblings, there’s always Kyle.”

She let out an undignified snort.

“If I wanted to hear about how wonderful Kyle is, I’d talk to mother.”

He knew that she was expecting him to banter back, but as usual could think of nothing to say.

“You _can_ talk to me, Lyle. I know you don’t like worrying people,” that wasn’t why he kept quiet, but he didn’t correct her, “but I want to know you. And if something’s wrong, I’d like to know.”

 _She’s lying, little dream,_ the smooth whispers of his nightmares said. _She doesn’t care._

He hummed, not sure whether it was in response to Eve or to the whisper of the Dreamers in his head, and made to lean away from his sister.

Then he saw it. A red, fragile looking thread, tied around his sister’s wrist. It was one of many, curling up her arms, both tied and untied. The difference, however, was that this one ran toward him. There was no knot on his end, leaving it floating around his arm as if underwater.

 _It’s so weak,_ the Dreamer said, _it’s going to break someday. Tear it off before it hurts you._

He imagined himself, reaching forward and ripping the fragile bond away from Evelyn. She’d be hurt, of course. More hurt than his mother and father had been when he began regarding them with distant politeness, certainly. But it would mean she couldn’t hurt him.

 _You'd be hurting yourself,_ a different voice, one which almost sounded like him, said. He was unaccustomed to hearing it, and even less accustomed to agreeing with it.

He imagined himself, reaching forward and tying off the end around his wrist.

“I’m not a very good brother,” he said, more of a thought said out loud.

“This isn’t a very good family,” Evelyn responded, not disagreeing. Slowly, so that she had every chance to pull away, he took her hand.

“Thank you for trying,” he said. It was not a promise. The thread on his end did not tie down, but it did circle around his wrist, settling against his pale skin.

 _I’ll try too,_ he thought, forgetting about the eyes of all the dancers in the hall, _just this once._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Lyle](http://wiki.tsw-rp.com/index.php?title=Lyle_%27Threadseeker%27_Stevens) is a man who has had several injustices done to him, and has made several mistakes as a result of it. I don't know why this came out hopeful, writing about him usually doesn't.


	5. Time | Adelaide Nott

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is there to be afraid of, when death cannot hold you for more than a moment?  
> Prompt: Your character is afraid

Adelaide has noticed that people her age either have many fears, or very few. The millennia either expose a thousand horrors, leaving them imprinted on the mind, or proves that every terror was something conquerable. Adelaide was a Templar. Conquering her darkness was her _job._

She had one fear, however. It was that very same thing that allowed her to overcome all her others: the steady tick of a clock. Time had never scared her when she was mortal, destined to run out of it. It was having so much that terrified her. It was watching the hourglasses around her run out, while hers sat full to the brim, the sand unmoving.

Quoting classical literature seemed cliché, to someone who had lived long enough to see every piece of it quoted. But she could not help but remember the feet of Ozymandias. Everything she built would be like this statue, toppled by the sands of time. But unlike the great king, she would not have the fortune of dying before it happened.


	6. Tom | Owen Mitchell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Owen sends an email to his bosses, and also we hear tell of one of his many, many, MANY pets.  
> Prompt: Your agent steals a plant from Orochi tower.

**To:** KGeary@allseeingtalent.com

 **From:** OMitchell1@allseeingtalent.com

 **CC:** PM@allseeingtalent.com, LCassini@allseeingtalent.com

Subject: I Can Explain

Hello Ms. Geary (and also the Pyramidion + Cassini, because I figure you’ll see this anyway so I might as well just send it to you),

There’s a really long, and really good story behind this but I’m sure you already know it. It’s kind of all over the news that I’m the Tokyo bomber, which as you know isn’t true because if I bombed Tokyo then you would have known I was in Tokyo and been like “wow why was Agent Mitchell in Tokyo” and I was in Missouri that week so like. That’s a great alibi. If you’re wondering why I was framed for destroying a major city, the tl;dr is that the head of Orochi is, like, an angel? And his wife is Terrible but has a unique fashion sense which I admire. But anyway he is really mad at me for accidentally getting his wife sent to angel prison, so he’s slandering me in the press because that’s what important people do when they get mad.

I know this will be really hard to fix and I’m really really sorry. I’ll bake you cookies (that’s directed at Ms. Geary, but I’ll bake you cookies too Cassini. And the Pyramidion, if, um, you tell me where to send them) if that makes up for it? Or even if it doesn’t, I’ve been on a bit of a baking kick lately so I have a lot. Are any of you allergic to peanuts? What about chocolate?

Anyway…uh…there’s one other thing. I have this plant. It’s not real. It’s, like, plastic. I took it from Orochi, because I may or may not have been a little mad about having Lillith monologue at me for fifteen minutes (don’t get me wrong, I love monologues, but this one didn’t really work for me) and then getting told by a bunch of angels that I’d “reap what I had sewn.” Also, my gecko Tom (attachment: tom.jpg) needed some more fake plants for his enclosure, so I just kind of took it. It’s a little burnt because it was on fire, and it might be poison so I realized after that I probably can’t give it to Tom. Do any of you want it? If not, do you know someone who might?

Thanks,

Owen Mitchell

Scouting Agent

All-Seeing Eye Talent Agency: Help Us Find You!


	7. Warm | Hallie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hallie, aka "a constantly overworked computer in the shape of a child", attracts some feline attention.  
> Prompt: Your character interacts with an animal.

“So,” the scientist said, her tone indicating that she was unsure how to continue. Or at least Hallie thought that was what that tone meant. She had expanded her dictionaries in the past several months, marking down every turn of phrase, and every emotion behind every tone of voice that she could. But sometimes people said things in a way that might mean that the meant one thing, while meaning something else instead.

“Yes?” She asked.

“That’s a lot of cats,” the scientist seemed somewhere between amused and confused. Hallie saved that response to the folder marked “sort later.”

“I suppose so,” she replied. The cat seated on her head purred, its tail swishing back and forth past her ear.

“Why…?”

“I am warm,” Hallie said, reaching up to pet the tabby in her lap as she had seen humans do. She had counted nine cats, perched on and around her. She understood the reaction. Cats enjoyed warmth, and her processors meant she was several degrees warmer than the surrounding area. She had not realized that the park hosted so many felines, but apparently it did. They had all been drawn to her, a respite to the cold and wet of the dreary day.

“No, why are you letting them?”

Hallie considered for a moment, trying to process the feel of the tabby’s fur on her artificial skin. She tried on a smile for the scientist, and seemed to avoid being alarming – which was difficult – because the scientist did not recoil.

“I enjoy them."

The scientist frowned, making a note. Hallie let her hand rest on the tabby’s back, and wondered what she did wrong.


	8. Listen | Lyle Stevens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyle runs into Evelyn while she's having a midnight snack, and together they listen to the thunder outside.  
> Prompt: your agent enjoys the sounds around them.

The Dreamers went quiet as soon as the storm hit. Lyle was unsure why. They whispered to him through everything else, had not given him a moment’s respite since his near death during the mission in Transylvania three months ago. But as a crack of light streaked across the sky, they faded into an ignorable murmur. Perhaps it was simply that they thought the thunder loud enough to drown out his thoughts without their help.

He did not know whether it was the thunder or the quiet in his head which woke him from dreams of shadow. Either way, both left him feeling restless. As silently as possible, he eased himself out of bed and padded across his room, into the hall, and downstairs.

“Oh, hello Lyle,” a voice said. He jumped.

Evelyn was perched beside him atop the kitchen counter, her bare toes curled around the edge. He wondered why she was awake. It was, after all, well past midnight, and she normally retired around eleven. But there she was, eating a bowl of ice cream in her pajamas and watching the rain. When she saw him, she patted the cold marble beside her, the string around her wrist rippling with the motion. He followed her instruction, struggling a bit to push himself up. Once he had managed it, she offered him her spoon.

“Did the thunder wake you?” He asked, taking the offered utensil. Whatever flavor the ice cream was, it had at least three kinds of chocolate in it. He supposed he approved.

“No. Well, sort of. I didn’t go to sleep tonight,” she smiled sheepishly.

“Why not?”

“I never do when there’s going to be a storm. I wouldn’t want to miss it!” As if on cue, there was a flash outside, followed by a deafening rumble. Evelyn’s eyes lit up both literally and figuratively. The glow of magic as electricity gathered in her palm, the anima manifesting even without her conscious thought. He stared at it, and the envy must have shown on his face, because she suddenly forced it away. She held out her hand, and he handed back the spoon.

“You like storms?” He asked, to hide his own self-consciousness.

“Yeah. I don’t know why. But something about the sound of thunder and rain is just so lovely.”

By some unspoken accord, they both fell silent. Lyle watched the window across from them. He listened to the staticky sound of the rain, to the roll of the thunder. Each lightning strike seemed to paint the sky in brightness, leaving behind afterimages in their wake. He drank in all of it. Not just the storms, but the way he was for once able to empty his head and have it be _quiet,_ the only noise coming from outside himself.

“You’re right. It’s beautiful.”

Evelyn grinned, and offered another bite of her ice cream. As he reached out to take the spoon, Lyle saw an invisible force begin to tie a knot in the thread around his wrist.


	9. Transit | All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four bees get on a chopper. What could go wrong?  
> Prompt: your agent on the way to fight the Ur-draug...again.

“D’ya think Cthulhu will attack us again?” Owen asked, shifting to get a better view. He’d managed to score one of the backseats this time, which gave him a great view out the window but also meant that if the big fish showed up he was the most likely to fall out of the helicopter. He hoped it didn’t kill him this time. Waking up in the anima well before the fight even started was never fun.

 _Well,_ he thought, _at least the tank probably won’t run in without waiting for me to get out this time._ He had been blamed for that, somehow, despite the fact that he could do very little trapped in the little circle of yellow light. The tank had muttered something about “doing everything himself,” and switched to a healtanking build. Owen had stopped bothering to leave the well at that point, as much as watching the entire team be brutally murdered had hurt him.

“Isn’t there a saying about not ensuring misfortune by mentioning it?” The strange, quiet girl behind him asked. Her brow furrowed a bit, and for a moment he thought he heard a mechanical whirring under his skin. It must have been his imagination, of course.

“Don’t jinx it?” He asked.

“No, you are the one who has jinxed it. Because you are the one who mentioned Cthulhu. Though, technically the Ur-Draug is not Cthulhu, but a being which mimics Cthulhu because of the power of Lovecraftian mythology on the human consciousness.”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” Owen allowed, mentally adding Hallie to his ‘children I need to protect from the world’ list. It was a long list.

“That’s very astute of you, Hallie,” Adelaide said from her seat across from them. The Templar seemed unaffected by the rocking of the helicopter, her sword in one hand and a cleaning cloth with the other. Owen thought, absentmindedly, that she seemed like an alright person. As an Illuminati, he was technically not supposed to like Templar very much, but a quick look at his texting history would reveal that he failed constantly. Sure, Mala might be in his phone as “terrible, do not heal,” but that irritation was just a sign of his fondness, and the rest of the reds who he had recently messaged he had downright positive feelings for.

He hoped that Geary wouldn’t yell at him for it, again.

“Excuse me,” Lyle asked from the pilot’s seat, “I know it is perhaps a bit late to say this but…aren’t there supposed to be five of us?”

“Technically,” Adelaide said, sheathing her sword, “but it will be alright.”

“We might have to hide from the Ur-Draug if we take too long, but it’ll be fine, yeah. We do do this, like, all the time,” Owen agreed. He hoped that would settle Lyle’s worries. Lyle seemed to have an awful lot of them, and it couldn’t be good for his health. Owen didn’t know Lyle very well, personally, but he was Mira’s cousin. Owen thought that being the relative of his ex-girlfriend who died in a nightmare realm might entitle Lyle to a little bit of Owen’s concern.

“You do this all the time?” Hallie asked, her glowing eyes widening.

“I mean, yeah. Geary’s always telling me,” He paused, putting on his best – read: not very good – Kirsten Geary impression, “hey, see if the monsters have cleared out of the Polaris yet, I’d like to get the cargo hauled back to base stat. Take whoever you want, just make sure you touch whatever we’re taking first so we get salvager’s rights. Oh, and if there are monsters, try and pry off some of that big fish’s scales. Suckers will pay _top dollar_ for those. Ciao ciao.”

“Wait, she says the exact same thing every time?” Adelaide asked, looking a little concerned.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure she just, like, records voice messages for everything and plays them over the phone whenever she wants us to do something. Does your boss not have specific monologues for things?”

Adelaide tapped her chin with one pointer finger thoughtfully. She always seemed thoughtful, of course. She was just one of those people. But this gesture seemed to be deliberate.

“Now that you mentioned it, Sonnac _does_ tend to repeat himself. Wouldn’t you agree, Agent Stevens?”

“Mr. Sonnac doesn’t send me on missions, ma’am. I’m just the secretary,” Lyle called back.

Owen frowned, looking at the very large and dangerous looking rifle leaning against the wall of the helicopter. Lyle seemed like a very dangerous secretary.

“You are a secretary with a gun? The secretary in my laboratory didn’t have a gun,” Hallie said. Owen frowned some more. Laboratory? Was Hallie a scientist? She looked a little young, but then again Owen had met a lot of young people who seemed very capable. Maybe she was an intern.

“Oh, I sometimes take missions on the side,” Lyle said, still not looking back at them, “it breaks up the monotony. Besides…oh dear, it would appear that the Ur-Draug has arrived.”

Owen sighed, tightening his grip on the little handhold hanging from the ceiling. This was his least favorite part.


	10. Good Morning (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen and Grey just sort of happened. It started with a joke. (Featuring Grey Wayside, who belongs to X-I-E/fuckyeahtsw on Tumblr). Day 1 of OC Kiss week, posted late because I was PLAYING TSW and it distracted me.

The two of them had started as a joke. Sometime in the first six months of Geary assigning Illuminati Special Agents Owen “Grantaire” Mitchell and Grey “Xiescive” Wayside together, people had started whispering about it. The sexual tension, that is. It’d seemed a little silly, at first. Owen had thought Grey was attractive, yeah, but he thought that about most people. And Grey seemed pretty dead-set on responding to anything Owen said with a blank expression and terse replies, which Owen had learnt about mid-college meant that he wasn’t interested in even just being friends. Which was fine. Owen could settle for one-way friendship feelings for as long as they kept getting sent into the field together.

The jokes began just as he was making that resolution. The two of them were stuck on yet another exploratory probe of the wreck of Polaris. The rest of the team was pretty green, staring at everything with the wide-eyed wonder of agents that hadn’t realized they’d be slogging back through the filthy water a million more times in search of some teeny scrap of information that the Illuminati could use. Grey was being a little bit snippy, as usual. Owen was trying his best to be friendly so that the kiddos wouldn’t get discouraged, as usual. And then, offhanded, one of them had said:

“Wow, the guys at HQ were right, you _are_ an old married couple.”

Owen had laughed it off, and pretended not to notice that Grey’s lips tightened just a little bit. Once Owen had realized that the two of them being “together” was kind of a thing back at base, he couldn’t seem to stop running into it. After a week or two of responding to them with “nah, we’re just good friends,” Owen had finally worked up the nerve to talk to Grey about it.

“Hey, uh, listen,” he said during one of their many excursions to Kingsmouth Town. Grey had made a noise of acknowledgement, not taking his eyes off the horde of zombies in front of him as he emptied round after round into their rotting bodies, “I know that you don’t like me all that much, so I’m sorry if all of the uh, jokes are bothering you.”

Grey sighed, not looking away from the zombies.

“S’not that I don’t like you,” he said, “just don’t like you like that. I don’t really…do things like that.”

“What, be old?”

“Getting married.”

“Oh, well, that’s fine,” Owen said, “a relief, honestly. I thought you hated me or something!”

Grey scoffed.

“If I hated you, I’m pretty sure you’d know.”

Owen didn’t bother saying that, while he could usually tell when someone didn’t like him, he hadn’t quite mastered telling when people actively _dis_ liked him. Instead, he just muttered something about how that was a relief and flexed his hand, tugging the half-congealed blood out of one zombies veins and sharpening it into a spike of viscera to send sailing through the horde.

They dropped the topic after that, and it stayed dropped for about a week. Then, one of Owen’s old rookies had cornered him in HQ.

“Dude, like, no judgement but uh, are you and Wayside like…” The agent made a vague gesture with his hands. Owen blinked, trying to grasp his meaning. When he caught it, he hastily shook his head.

“Dating? No, no, he doesn’t do that sort of thing.”

“I was gonna say fucking, man. I know he doesn’t do _dating.”_

“No offense, Jack, but I don’t think it’s any of your business who I’m fucking? Besides, we aren’t.” Jack had apologized, said he’d only asked on account of some of the guys had made bets about it and sent him to find out who won the money.

Of course, Jack had gone and made him think about it, and Owen is bad at not thinking about things. So the next time they were out in the field, Owen had caught himself staring. Which, you know, harmless, but Grey had _also_ caught him staring, which was less harmless.

“I get something on my pants?” He asked. Which, yeah, there was a little bit of Draug slime there, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Owen had put out of his mind that Grey had a nice ass. Owen took a deep breath, decided that keeping his mouth shut was not conducive to a good working relationship, and dove in.

“Someone asked if we were, you know, having sex,” he said. Grey blinked.

“Yeah?”

“I said no, on account of we aren’t but you’re…really attractive,” Owen said, almost before he could think about it, “sorry!”

“Oh,” Grey said flatly. Then, with more consideration, “ _oh._ ”

“And I know you don’t do, like, dating, but uh, I wasn’t sure if you did other things and-“ Owen stopped, because Grey is _definitely_ considering him now. Then Grey said something about coming over after the mission and went back to headshotting Draugr before Owen could respond.

That’s how they ended up being a “thing.” The two of them had sex, and they had it on enough different occasions that eventually whatever they were stopped seeming like a string of one night stands, and eventually the two of them established habits. They didn’t meet up after missions, not unless it was frustrating (for reasons other than “Grey got annoyed by being about Owen being cheery around him for too long”) and they needed a release. Usually they met up at Owen’s, since it was closer to work, but sometimes Owen got a text that just said “Here’s where I’m stationed, I’m bored, come meet me.” At first, they parted ways as soon as they finished, but then one of Owen’s cats decided she preferred Grey to Owen, and after that Grey starts spending the night.

Which was how Owen woke up one day to a pair of ice cubes pressed against his shins.

“Grey,” he muttered into the back of Grey’s head.

“Mmmmm,” Grey mumbled irritably, but otherwise did not react.

“Greeeeeeeey.”

“Shut up, man, I’m trying to sleep.”

“Grey, please, I think my legs are going to get hypothermia.”

“You’re a healer, you know that’s not how that works,” Grey slurred, but he shifted so his feet were no longer touching Owen, and the two of them fell back to sleep.

An hour later, Owen jolted back into awareness to Grey jamming his frigid feet into Owen’s legs. Owen let out a yelp.

“What was that for?” He asked.

“I was trying to get you to wake up, but you wouldn’t so I had to take drastic measures. Now let me go, I need to pee.”

“You’re gonna freeze my legs off!”

“That’s not how that works!”

“I’m gonna need an amputation, and all because of you!” Owen cried, nestling closer to Grey, “the horror!”

“Serves you right,” Grey muttered, now let me _go_!”

“Nuh-uh,” Owen said, “payback time.”

With that, Owen retaliated, pressing his toes into the back Grey’s legs. Grey let out an indignant noise, elbowing Owen softly to get out of his grip. For a second, Owen thought he had gone too far, but then Grey laughed, turning in bed to face him.

“That was stupid,” he said, leaning in and pressing a kiss on Owen’s mouth, “that was fucking stupid, and you are never telling anyone that we just had a cold-toes fight, or that I enjoyed it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Owen replied, choking back his own laughter.

“Good,” Grey mumbled, and got up to pee.


	11. Near Death Experience (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 of OC kiss week: When Mala Vanderhog takes a hit during a boss battle, Owen is left unsure whether she's going to pull through. Prompt is emotional kiss. Not actually shippy. Mala belongs to Mentarnes on tumblr.

               By this point, Owen had grown accustomed to Mala running into battle screaming. That was how pretty much all of the inter-factional operations they ended up on went: Mala shouted going and ran in, hammer raised above her head as Owen frantically tried to get a blood shield on her before whatever baddy they were after that week ate her face. Usually, that was fine, because Mala was one of the sturdiest people he’d ever met. Sometimes it got them all killed instantly, which was less fine but which he had gotten used to.

               Occasionally, it ended like this. The monster was dead, but ten seconds into the fight Mala had dropped, leaving Owen only a moment to scatter and draw shields up around the second most appetizing member of his team. As the monster - a titanic, rotting mass of bear-flesh - sagged to the ground, Owen waited for Mala to saunter over from the anima well as if nothing had happened.

               Five seconds passed. Then ten. Then, Owen was running past the corpse of the monster, searching for any exposed bit of white coat. Owen breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that, despite the claw pierced dangerously close to her side, Mala wasn’t pinned down. But she also wasn’t moving. Owen shoved the beast’s paw out of the way and got to his knees, pushing Mala on her back and searching for a visible injury. He was never sure what to do when people weren’t conscious, but also weren’t dead. In their line of work, occupying the space between awake and functional and deceased wasn’t something that happened often. Her coat was blood spattered which might have meant an injury, but when he twisted his wrist it all flowed off her easily, which meant it was likely his.

“Uh, what are we going to do?” One of the other agents asked. Owen sighed, pulling a long, thin knife from out of his coat.

“Hey hey, what are you doing with that?” Another one asked. Owen ignored them, kneeling at Mala’s side.

“Hey, Mala, uh, do me a favor and don’t have internal injuries or anything,” he muttered to her. It’d always bothered him, dealing with comrades he couldn’t help. Part of him, the part that was from before he had powers, told him it would be better to airlift them somewhere and hope they made a full recovery. That killing them just because it’d fix them immediately wasn’t the best option. Which was why he shook Mala’s shoulders one more time before sinking in the knife.

Mala groaned.

“Oh thank Gaia,” he said, sliding the knife back into its hiding spot.

“Shit, I think I must’ve hit my head or something,” she mumbled, sitting up and putting a hand to her temple. Owen laughed, pulling her into a hug, “hey, what the shit Owen? I can’t breathe like this.”

“I thought you were dead,” he said. On impulse, he pulled back a bit, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Owen, are you fucking crying?” Mala asked, but didn’t push him away as expected.

“Of course I’m crying! You’re my friend, I don’t want you dead!”

“You’re stupid,” Mala scoffed, “I’m immortal.”

“Dude, were you seriously gonna kill her?” One of the other agents asked. Mala shoved Owen off her, turning toward the agents and raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, yeah. That’s like…how it works? There’s a well right there, after all.”

“Dude,” the agent said.

“Whatever. Let’s get out of here, Owen. I’m tired of dealing with these rookies.”


	12. Office Party (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen reunites with his sort of surrogate younger sister and cohort in the "Team Terrible Lumis" at an Illuminati holiday party. Day three of OC Kiss Week: Surprise Kiss, featuring kyothink's character Emma Marshall.

               Illuminati holiday parties were always either the worst – or best, depending on one’s preferences – drug-fueled orgy nightmares, or completely tame. It was impossible to tell which way it’d go, since all the invites were the same sort of vague – and vaguely threatening – rambling about fun that the Pyramidion liked. You just sort of had to go, and hope that it was the kind you were into. Which was why, when Owen spotted a head of blue hair at the 2016 Illuminati Holiday Bonanza/White Elephant Gift Exchange he was relieved that it was just sort of a bunch of people hanging out and drinking maybe-spiked holiday punch.

               For some reason, Pyramidion had decided that this party would only really fit the spirit of the holidays if it took place in a suburban living room, filled with chintzy furniture. So, he’d remodeled the labyrinth, filling it with assorted knickknacks and a tinsel covered tree. Even being, you know, Definitively Not A Christian, Owen could appreciate a good shiny tinsel, but even he had to admit that it was a little much. And Owen knew very well that a little much for him was a lot much for anyone that wasn’t him. Emma seemed to be enjoying herself at the thankfully PG-rated party, however, which meant everything was fine.

               Owen had been a hundred percent on board with Phoebe’s “let Emma finish school so that her mind isn’t warped by being a child soldier for the Illuminati” plan. But her being outside the secret world meant that he, one of the people that every major news outlet still occasionally flashed a photo of with the subtitles TOKYO BOMBING SUSPECTS STILL AT LARGE, couldn’t exactly see her all that often. Pretty much ever, in fact. So when he saw her sitting cross-legged on a stained beige settee, wearing a bright orange sweater covered in what he (who wasn’t particularly versed in Christmas carols) _thought_ was every single item from the Twelve Days of Christmas song, he’d hastened to drop his white elephant gift on the pile (an Illuminati-themed mug cozy that admittedly wasn’t the most _skillfully_ knitted thing but had a lot of heart) and made his way across the room. She was absorbed in a conversation with Phoebe, which was good, because Owen didn’t notice the perfect opportunity until he’d almost reached her. Pyramidion had probably not intended for Owen's plan when the shady overhead speaker voice had hung little sprigs of green plant everywhere.

               Phoebe caught sight of him just as he was in range, which was surprising. He usually wasn’t all that stealthy, especially not when wearing a light up menorah sweater. So he was incredibly grateful when she said his name at the perfect moment and-

               Before Emma could react, Owen shouted “mistletoe!” and planted a kiss on Emma’s cheek with an exaggerated "mwah". She let out a soft noise of surprise, blinking a few seconds before it properly sank in.

               “Owen!” She squeaked excitedly, turning and launching herself at him. He let out a soft “ooh” as her arms constricted around his waist and her head burrowed into his chest.

               “Emma!” He shouted back, returning the hug. Without letting go, Emma began launching into a full-blown summary of her year, her voice muffled by the thick fabric of his sweater. 

               “You’re both so _much_ ,” Phoebe sighed, taking a sip of her eggnog.

               “Happy holidays to you too, Phoebe,” Owen beamed, and went to ruffle Emma’s hair.


	13. The Breakroom (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alessa doesn't do things like "admitting affection," but Owen has a pretty smile. Day 4 of OC kiss week, "Heated Kiss," featuring biomechanicaltomato's character Alessa "Inanna" Fischer

               Inanna was always a little bit cranky, but Owen didn’t hold it against her. It must’ve been hard, he thought, dealing with recruits day in and day out. His job put him on plenty of would-be-Illuminati doorsteps, but fortunately his job ended there. Usually. When they didn’t puppy dog eyes at him until he took them through Kingsmouth Town. But Agent Inanna’s job was a lot more hands on, and he figured that doing all that dying must get a little tiring. That, and the fact that the always ended up on lunch break at the same time whenever they were both on office duty, meant that Owen was on semi-permanent rant-observer duty. Right now, Inanna was seated on the countertop of the breakroom, recounting one of her adventures over her third cup of coffee. At some point he’d settled down next to her, occasionally tipping his half empty Bingo into his mouth.

               “He ran _into_ the Ur-Draug,” Inanna muttered, throwing in a few words of Italian for good measure, “he’s a _healer,_ Mitchell.” Owen perked up at that. Were they on last name basis finally? Last week, Inanna…Agent Fischer had bit his head off for not using codenames, so progress was progress. And progress meant that maybe by the end of the year Inanna would willingly admit to being her friend.

               “Well, maybe he thought he could heal the tank better if he was next to him?” Owen said lamely. Sure, maybe that didn’t make much sense, but Owen always liked to think the best of people. It obviously wasn’t good enough for Inanna, though. She groaned, slamming her “#1 Teacher” coffee mug down beside her. A bit of coffee splashed onto her hand and she hissed.

               “Mitchell, please. Do me a favor and can the sunshine act for a couple seconds.”

               “What do you mean?” Owen asked. Inanna wrinkled her nose at him.

               “Oh my god. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, do you?”

               “What?”

               “You know, whatever. Anyway, he ran _right_ into the Ur-Draug, which turned out to not be too much of a problem, because the tank couldn’t hold its attention worth a…”

               Owen listened along to her ramblings. Even if he thought she could be too harsh when talking about, well, pretty much everything, Inanna certainly had a nice voice. Especially when she was talking about something she cared about. And despite how much she went on about being irritated about the Protocol, Owen could tell she cared very much about it. After a few minutes, Inanna’s chatter abruptly ceased, and Owen frowned.

               “What’s wr-“ Owen was cut off by Inanna putting a hand under his chin and coaxing it up. In one smooth motion, she leaned to the side, bent down, and pressed her lips to his. He let out a soft noise in her throat, which he had intended to be a confused one but sounded more… _en_ thused. She shifted in closer, pulling him toward her by his jacket and kissed him harder. Well, if this was going to be an extended thing…Owen let his eyes drift closed, tasting the coffee on her lips. It was sweeter than he’d expected from her, but he wasn’t about to complain.

               After a few seconds of kissing, Inanna pulled back, looking like she wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or appreciative.

               “I’m not gonna complain,” Owen said, “but what was that for?”

               “You had that stupid smile on your face, it was,” Inanna stopped, biting her lips.

               “Was what?”

               “It was…ugh, I’m not saying it.”

               “Okay, but, uh, I don’t know what you’re not saying-“

               “Cute,” she said, and leaned in to kiss him again before he could react.


	14. The Diner (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For OC Kiss Week (Fluffy Kisses), featuring suck-my-xray's Kyle Brooks.   
> Kyle's tired of getting stuck in broken down diners in shitty hellscapes, so Owen takes her to a normal one.

               Kingsmouth Town is a pretty nice place to get sent for a job, as far as the sorts of places Owen gets sent to _go._ Nothing punches him too hard except for the odd rotting bear, and aside from being a little uncomfortably close to his hometown it’s actually…sort of nice. Plus, it’s where all the teams send their little baby agents, which means that Owen gets to work with more new people in Maine than pretty much anyplace else.

               Like Kyle, for instance. Owen has a special little soft spot for Kyle, and he likes to think that it’s reciprocal. She’s prickly, sure, but so are like ninety-five percent of new Illuminati recruits, and he’s pretty sure that it’s nothing personal. After all, half his friends he made by assuming that them being prickly wasn’t personal, and it’d worked out pretty well. Which was how they ended up having a conversation, sitting at a relatively clean table in Susie’s Diner.

               “Why the fuck do all these places have diners?” Kyle asked, flicking a bit of gore away from her. Owen shrugged, carefully not staring at her hands. She was wearing the gloves he gave her, and he knew that calling attention to it would just make her do that half-blushing half-frowning thing she did sometimes.

               “Dunno what you mean.”

               “I mean,” Kyle sighed, “I don’t know. All places probably have diners, but I feel like the shitholes we get sent to are more likely to have shitty restaurants filled with shitty corpses than other places.”

               “To be fair, everything’s filled with corpses,” Owen pointed out. Kyle rolled her eyes, and he continued, “I mean, that café in Egypt (insert name here) isn’t filled with corpses. And Soosanoo’s is nice.”

               “ _Yeah,”_ Kyle admitted, “but everyone there’s all talking about how the world’s fucking ending and they can’t escape. It’s fucking depressing, man. Especially when they try to stay positive about it. Shit man, it’s been ages since I’ve been to a restaurant that _wasn’t_ rated zero stars on Yelp because the fucking _Apocalypse was happening outside._ ”

               Owen couldn’t think of a reply, and luckily a zombie attacked him before that could make things awkward.

* * *

 

               He figured that she forgot about the whole discussion, or at least figured _he’d_ forgotten about the whole discussion. She certainly looked surprised when he showed up on her doorstep the next time they were off duty.

               “You want to go to a diner?” He asked.

               “What the fuck?”

               “You want to go to a diner?”

               “Uh,” Kyle’s brow furrowed, “I…can’t think of any reason not to. Are you paying? I’m poor.”

               The pax-real money currency exchange was never great, so Owen understood that. Fortunately, whenever Agnitio threw him a job that job tended to be with people who believed in actual currency that could be used at the store instead of money that was only accepted in disaster zones and at vending machines. So he nodded, because this was one of the weeks that he did, in fact, have money. Kyle went to get her coat.

               “What’s up?” Owen asked around the straw of his chocolate milkshake. Kyle started.

               “What?”

               “You were looking at me.”

               Kyle bit her lip.

               “That milkshake is _way_ too large for one person to eat. Aren’t you afraid you’ll, like, chocolate OD or something?”

               Owen was not, in fact, worried, on account of he’d had this size milkshake before. But she seemed genuinely distressed, so he offered her the straw.

               “Well, do you wanna help me with it?” He asked. She stared at him like he’d turned into a Fata Padurii.

               “Dude, that’s like…fucking kissing or something.”

               “What, are you afraid I have cooties?” He teased, and she blushed, “well, if you’re worried about doing something that’s like kissing…”

               He leaned forward very slowly, giving her time to pull away, and pecked her on the lips. She didn’t back away, but the squeak she made on contact still seemed somehow surprised.

               “What the shit was that for?” She asked, voice a little breathy.

               “We’ve shared cooties now, so you can drink my milkshake,” he said, offering her the straw again.

               “You can’t just…” she trailed off, “oh my God you’re fucking infuriating,” she said, darting forward and kissing him again, “now give me your fucking milkshake.”


	15. Pining (Owen Mitchell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen comforts Therese over her affections for Zaha. For OC Kiss Week: Hesitant Kiss. Features Lowtideandhightea's Therese, also featured in my other story "How to Flirt: Zaha Edition", where she actually flirts with Zaha.

               “I’m sure you’ll, uh, work things out,” Owen said, reaching over and patting Therese on the back. She groaned, raising her head to tilt more alcohol into her mouth. On the other end of the bar, The Forest God raised his glass in commiseration.

               “I’m doomed. I’m lost forever. I’ll never love again,” Therese groaned into her cup. Owen wasn’t 100% sure what precisely had doomed her. Inanna had sent him a text, which had woken him from a very strange but not necessarily bad dream about apricots. The text said “YOU’RE PEPPY, CHEER UP THERESE. SHE IS BEING A TRAGIC LESBIAN IN THE HORNED GOD. HELP ME OWEN-WAN, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE. I CAN’T DEAL WITH THIS.”

               Therese was, indeed, being a tragic lesbian. From what he’d gathered between her groaning into her arms and ordering drinks, she was being a tragic lesbian for a certain Zaha of the Draculesti.

               “Umm, I’m sure you can find someone?” He said, smiling reassuringly, “there’s lots of gays in New York. At least, I’m pretty sure there are…I’ve never dated a lesbian before so I can’t be a hundred percent sure but-“

               Therese snorted into her drink.

               “Was that a laugh or more sadness?”

               “I just want to be _sad_ Owen. I like her, like, so much. She’s so cool. Too cool. I can’t deal with it, Owen.”       

               “I mean, you’re pretty cool,” Owen pointed out. Therese was somewhere near the top of Owen’s cool list, to be perfectly honest. If someone were to rewrite that one Mean Girls meme about one of his friends, he figured it’d be Therese.

               “I just wanna kiss somebody,” Theres muttered, “it’s not fair nobody kisses me. Why does no one love me Owen?”

               Owen met Sophie’s eyes across the bar. She looked just as panicked as him.

               “Uh, well,” Owen said slowly, “I know I’m not a pretty girl. So I don’t count. But platonic wise, you’re pretty cool so…” with great care, he kissed her softly on her cheek, “there. It’s not as good, but uh, it’s about all I’ve got?”

               Therese snorted again.

               “Oh my _god Owen._ That’s the gayest thing you’ve ever done.”

               “Uh, well, I’m pretty sure that’s not the gayest thing I’ve ever done.”

               The Forest God huffed disapprovingly.

               “That was _bad_ Owen,” Therese laughed, “that was really really bad.”

               “That’s what I’m here for!” Owen winked. Then, more seriously, “but hey, out of curiosity. Have you, like, talked to Zaha about things?”

               “What do you _take_ me for?”

               “Well, like, I am not a love expert or anything. But I’ve found that like, when you have a crush on someone things are more likely to happen if you tell them about it.”

               Therese turned red.

               “ _Never_.”

               “Alright,” Owen said, “just think about it. When you’re, like, done with the drinking.”

               “ _Never,”_ Therese insisted, but softer and with a thoughtful expression.


End file.
